Tag Archives: Lifeprint augmented reality

The Lifeprint is a device that I have written about before. I first saw it when I was at CES last January, and I thought it was hands-down the coolest thing that was at the show.

Instead of doing my normal shtick of showing a still shot of the device itself, I felt it was just much better to show this promo video from Lifeprint instead. What began as a crowdfunded project has become a way to make the printed photo relevant again.

In case you are one of the rare ones who would rather read text than watch a video, here is what the Lifeprint can do. It uses the power of augmented reality in order to turn an ordinary photo into a video.

Lifeprint has made a comparison to Harry Potter, and if you remember seeing the moving picture headlines from any one of those movies, the comparison is pretty honest. Of course, Harry and his wizard friends didn’t need a smartphone or tablet to make this magic work.

It is pretty simple to make this work, as the Lifeprint App (for Apple and will soon be available on Android) collects all photos and videos from the camera, and this includes anything on Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, Facebook, GoPro, and Twitter. For those with Apple Live Photos, this is also an option.

Once you have chosen your video, you can essentially create your “cover”. This is the one still image that will serve as your photo for your augmented reality video. If you want to, you can even touch up the photo using the editing tools and such.

From there, you can print your photo on the Lifeprint printer, and then view it through Lifeprint’s viewer. Your still shot will be still no longer, and your memory from that photo will spring to life.

Now, here is the interesting part: you can print your cover photo from other Lifeprint printers around the world, provided they are on your network. This I didn’t get a chance to try out, as I don’t know anyone who has one of these yet. I have hunch that will change as Lifeprint has the potential to be next thing in social networking.

I also think that it is interesting that Lifeprint realized in advance that people will use Lifeprint for turning possibly non-X-rated photos into X-rated videos. It says on their site that their printer is straight up sexy, but that is not what they mean. Let’s hope that this doesn’t become an issue, as people already talk about sexting so much that spell-checker isn’t even red-underlining “sexting”.

The Lifeprint printer can be purchased for $129.95 on the Lifeprint site, and it requires some special photo paper to work (with a 110 pack costing $49.95). While I’m talking about the other accessories, I should bring up the other specs. The printer is quite small at 5 x 3 x 1 inches, and can print 10-15 photos (2 x 3 inches) per charge. It takes 1 hour for a full charge, and has a 30 second printing time.